Proper long-term respiratory care of intubated patients requires that multiple medical procedures be performed on the patient. Such procedures may include, for example, ventilation of the patient's lungs; aspiration of secretions from the lungs; oxygenation of the lungs; elimination or reduction of residual CO2 from the lungs; visual inspection of portions of the respiratory system; sampling sputum and gases; sensing parameters such as flow rates, pressure, and temperature of gases within the respiratory system; and/or the administration of medication, gases, and/or lavage.
In the majority of these procedures, a medical treatment device, such as a catheter assembly, is connected to a patient's artificial airway, for example a tracheostomy tube or endotracheal tube. A connecting member, such as an adapter, manifold or other like member, may be attached to the proximal end of the artificial airway and the medical treatment device is inserted through the adapter or manifold and into the artificial airway. The manifold may include a variety of ports through which any manner of medical treatment device may be inserted into the patient's respiratory system for carrying out any combination of the procedures mentioned above.
During certain procedures, it is important that the medical treatment device be precisely positioned in the patient's respiratory system. For example, when using a gas insulation catheter to oxygenate a patient's lungs, it is necessary to precisely position the catheter at the carina of the lung and maintain the catheter in that position. Similarly, it may be necessary to precisely place a biopsy device, sampling device, or monitoring device into the patient's respiratory system and maintain the positioning of the device for the duration of the procedure. However, many of these procedures must be repeated multiple times a day on the same patient and/or require multiple insertions of the device into the patient. Each time an insertion occurs the risk of damaging the patient's respiratory system is present, generally as a result of overinsertion of the device into the patient. This is particularly the case when the insertions are performed by different clinicians such as nurses on different shifts in a hospital.
One concern with current medical devices is that even though many are used for multiple insertions within the same patient there has not been a way to minimize or reduce the risk to the patient upon insertions thereof and especially on the second or subsequent insertions thereof. The present invention provides a reliable and relatively easy to use clamping assembly for limiting the distal advancement or depth of insertion of a medical treatment device into or through a patient's artificial airway and/or respiratory system.